Best way to RAID these drives...?

[karossii]

I got myself to thinking about the various drives I am using right now in my system (7 in all), and would like to have at least a few in a RAID setup for a bit of security and possibly a performance increase (though not sure much of one would be seen).

I have the following drives;

• 120GB Agility3 SSD - 37.4/111 GB free - system drive + adobeCS5
• 80GB 5400RPM hdd - (?/? free) - backup install of Win7 (no currently plugged into the sata)
• 250GB 7200RPM hdd - 212/232 GB free - used as a scratch volume and paging file volume
• 480GB 7200RPM hdd - 452/452 GB free - blank
• 640GB 5400RPM hdd - 251/596 GB free - used as a secondary apps drive (for all apps not on the system ssd)
• 1TB 7200RPM hdd - 104/931 GB free - media files (music, dvd backups, etc)
• 1TB 7200RPM hdd - 356/931 GB free - documents (various video editing projects, text files, images, flash projects, etc.)

I was thinking of maybe partitioning the two 1TB drives into 4 480GB drives, then use those plus the physical 480 in a RAID config...

I am also considering partitioning the 250 into 4 60GB drives, then the SSD into two 60GB drives, and use the 4 + half the SSD as a RAID, and allow the other half of the SSD as a cache drive for SRT...

not sure, am open to any other suggestions too... I may just leave well enough alone; it is all working for me now, and would be a huge project to backup/move data from the drives (all except the 250GB and 480GB are between 60-90% full) to reformat them into any kind of RAID...

 

[Automata]

The only ones that seem to match are the 1 TB drives. RAID 0 for speed (no redundancy) and RAID 1 for redundancy.

While you can RAID the mismatched drives, you are going to be limited by the smallest one. So, if you RAID the 480 GB drive with a 1 TB drive, you would completely lose access to excess 520 GB on the 1 TB drive. Not to mention speed issues or it simply not working. When you put drives in a RAID array, you want them to be the same model, and at very least, the same size.

You would be better off getting more of the 1 TB drives or buying 2 TB drives and putting those in a RAID array.

 

[karossii]

I was under the impression that if I created smaller, matched-size volumes, I could RAID the volumes regardless of the actual drive's capacity - am I mistaken in that?

 

[Automata]

You can RAID partitions with pure software RAID (such as mdadm in Linux), and I'm unsure as to whether Windows allows this. I know for sure that on-board and full hardware RAID controllers do not allow this.